


paper cups

by chiyokintou



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Short Story, jeanmarco, marcojean - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 13:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9492569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiyokintou/pseuds/chiyokintou
Summary: Jean Kirschtein lost the small bookstore he had always worked for. Marco Bodt is secretly having a hard time paying the rent for the coffeeshop he owns. Jean doesn't like the idea, but working together to become one shop is the best option they have.Coffee shop au.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is one of my many coffeeshop au oneshots! I hope you will like it.  
> I'm going to beta read in a few days so don't mind stupid mistakes ;p

“Maybe it’s easier to just accept defeat, man.”

People walked in and out of the shop. Some people took a book with them from the secondhand section. Had me thinking about starting a full second hand bookshop, but I appreciate writers too much to not buy their books. The small bookstore was driving me into depth.  

“Fuck off with your acceptance of defeat.”

Eren stepped closer to the counter. “Look.” he pointed at his boyfriend Armin, who was browsing through the shop, and whispered. “I don’t fucking want this shop to close. You know that I took him here on our first date and that I will forever be thankful because I’m still not sure if he fell in love with me or the shop first.” I nodded. “I just don’t want you to dig your own fucking grave.”

“I put my all into this place, man.”  I bit my lip. “The Barnes & Nobles wants to buy it from me, because the neighbors place is also for sale.”

“How much did they offer?”

“For fuck’s sake Eren. Not enough to start something new. They know I’m broke and that I’m going to give in.” He glances at the bit off wall you could see through all the books and the wooden bookshelves. The new authors he liked had a special place so that they would get more attention. The walls were industrial and stone, plants were hanging from the roof. There was no place like this place.  

“Jean think about it, you can get out of fucking depth if you sell-”

Eren fell into silence when Armin walked up to the counter with three books under his arm. “Is it just me or is the collection getting smaller?”

I coughed. “People don’t fucking read anymore-”

“Jean, you have always gotten aggressive when people tell you that. I don’t believe a word you say.”

Eren and I both fell into silence. We didn’t dare to tell him. For him my bookstore is a good place to relax. Armin had come here since his first date with Eren. The two had sticked together and Eren was sure that it was because of the shop.  
The shop did have something magical, to even make Eren seem like a charming person.

Armin didn’t push and laid his books down on the counter. “Good debuts.” he mumbled. Debuts were always dangerous. If a writer's first book doesn’t go big they will almost never become big.

“Good choice” I replied. With every book I sold these days I felt like it could be my last. The goddamn bigger bookstores were hunting my mind. There was no way I could keep the shop. I hate to say that Eren was right for once.

  


I sipped my coffee in a warm white with brown coffee shop. The tables were old a rough wood. The place was pretty big for a coffee shop. I saw different brown coloured cups, but all of them were big. This coffeeshop did not bullshit with good coffee. They knew how tired people could get. On some days Armin helped out in this shop, even though he had a proper job. I believe that the owner was a friend of him. It was my first time actually coming here because I used to work a lot.  
I sold the shop. Now I was just waiting for the last information. With the money I had gotten I could live for a while, but I’d rather invest it. I’d want to invest it in good writers who are losing their goddamn job like I have.  

“Your coffee.”

The brown haired barista put the coffee in front of me. He had freckles plastered all over his face. He was a little bit like this shop, the freckles were the cups. The thought made me laugh. He looked at me questioning. I wasn’t looking for a conversation.

“You’re freckles.”  

He took a deep breath and blushed, “excuse me?¨  

“They are a little bit like these cups.” Fuck me right now. That was one of the most embarrassing thing I had ever said. I had probably offended him too. All this ‘losing my life’ shit was getting to me.

“Thanks? I guess.”

I coughed. Ignored him. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to ask something else. Maybe he wanted to ask: ‘geez, what the actual fuck is wrong with you?’ He didn’t though. He turned his back to me. He was wearing a thick brown-red sweater and his white apron was tied around his waist.  And he had a waist! He was pretty build. He was not yet chubby but you could see he wasn’t thin. Healthy, I guess. It fitted his face.

I decided not to stare anymore though, before I offended him even more with my damn angry face.

My phone rang. I looked who it was before answering because the phone calls for the sale were driving me nuts. It was Armin.  “Hey Ar.”

“Jean! Is it correct that you sold your shop?”

I let my hand go through my hair in frustration. “Something like that yeah.”

“How did they get you that far?”

“How do you think they got me that far?! I was in depth and couldn’t pay the damn rent, Armin!”   The freckled barista looked at me in shock, because I was yelling through his calm shop. I apologized with my hand and eyes before quickly walking outside for a second.

“I’m sorry, Jean, I could have known.”

I swallowed. “People loved the shop. I don’t know how it got this far.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know that.”

I heard a sigh on the side of the line. “Jean, you will figure something out and I’ll help you. The rent in this city is getting too insane, but there will be a way.”

Soon after Armin calmed me we hung up. I told him that my coffee was getting cold, which was absolutely true. When I walked into the coffee shop again I saw that there was one book shelf. The books that were on it were okay, but they were classics. I took a poetry bundle and started reading some of the poems that were in it while drinking my coffee.  

Once in awhile I looked up at the barista and when he noticed this he looked like he had a thousand things to say. He didn’t say anything.

I finished my coffee. There was still a bottom of cold coffee in the cream coloured cup. When the barista walked up to me to take the coffee he had the same confused look on his face. He smiled through it, but the look was there. “Look,” he stopped in his track, “I’m sorry that I yelled in your shop. Won’t happen again.”

“Oh! That’s no problem at all!”  

I put five dollars on the table, gave a little wave, and walked outside. I was done for the day. Something was seriously wrong if not even slightly coloured and freckled baristas could make my day.

 

 

“So he has wanted to make it a bookstore or bookrenter for quite a while now. He has the space and he has the customers, he just doesn’t have contacts and knowledge about the bookstore world.”, Armin said, his body leaned towards me and a serious look in his eye.

“You know how bad I am at working together with people.”

He sighed. “Jean, you have been telling me how you’d do anything to keep your business going, but once you get an opportunity you tell me ‘no’?”

I looked through my small studio. I basically lived in my store, now I was goddamn stuck here or with some shitty job. I had gotten an alright amount of money. I could rent another studio.  “Maybe I’ll just be lazy until the money is long gone.”

“Okay, good luck making yourself happy without angry conversations about books.”

He frowned “Hey! It’s not fucking angry, it’s passionate-”

“-and a little grumpy.”

“Besides the point.”

Armin nodded. He sipped the last bit of his coffee as if he was done talking to me. “I’m taking you to go see the shop. I already talked about it with the owner.”

“I’m sorry you did what?”

Armin stood up and put on his brown jacket and black thin scarf. He looked like a nice businessman. I looked like a depressed alcoholic.  “Fuck..”

“What is it?”  

“Nothing let’s go.”

Walking beside Armin made me a little bit conscious of myself. If I had wanted to make a good impression I would have pulled on a black sweater and trousers or something. I didn’t feel like doing it. I didn’t think that it would be something for me; working together with a coffee shop and sell my books there. It seemed like a bad idea. Working together with someone seemed like an bad idea.

Armin had meant the coffee shop he sometimes worked in. I realised that that also meant I would see the freckled guy who worked there if I were to agree to the deal. That was a detail though. I would only have to see him, nothing more.

Armin walked into the shop with charming confidence. The small bell that was hanging on the howled that we were coming in in it’s own cute way. “Marco!”, Armin yelled.

“Armin!”, a man raised from behind the counter. He was covered in freckles and had a big smile on his face. It was the freckled barista. He was working again.  

He walked up to me with a cheerful and fast walk. I took his hand when he offered it. “My name is Marco.”  he said softly. Breathless from walking so fast.

“Jean.” I answered.

He grinned. “I know.”

“B-but-” I roughly pushed my hand through my hair. Embarrassed and slightly pissed off that I knew less than the rest of the entire world.

“I’m the owner of this shop.”  Marco and Armin had a little chat in which I barely took any place and then Marco basically send Armin away. Not that Armin seemed to have any problem with this. He seemed more than pleased that Marco wanted to be left alone with me to have a chat.

I wasn’t.

He was still handsome.

I had still fucked up.

Working together was still not up my street.  

The door closing behind Armin was scary. For a second a cold wave came into the room. Armin threw me and apologetic smile from outside and then disappeared. I panicked.  

We sat down at one of the wooden tables. There were two couples sitting on the other side of the room. On the table laid magazines about architecture, art or poetry. Music I recognized as Blazo was playing. The room was a deep breath that wanted to straighten my frown.

“I know that you don’t want to do this.” Marco said as soon as we he sat down. “Listen to me. I can see it in your eyes. You’re dream has been teared to shreds. You are insanely independent.”

“Well you’re right. I don’t really want to do this.”

Marco rubbed one of his hands over his freckled face. His cheeks turned red. “Armin has told me how you buy books. He has mimicked you because he loved the way you talk about books. I know nothing. I know you judged my books when you last came here-”

“I did.” I awkwardly scratched the wooden table and accidentally broke one small piece. Marco noticed but chose not to comment on it. I believe I saw him smile a little. His freckles moving up when his cheeks got thicker.

“So I need your help. I love books, believe me.”

I leaned forward. “But what’s in it for you hm? You are willing to help the workless guy to start his bookstore in your shop. It seems as if you’re just helping me.”

“Well, I just really like it-”

“I won’t do it.”

Marco sighed and looked down at his coffee. “Let me explain what the deal is exactly.”

“No. This is not even working together. It’s a pity party you and Armin are throwing for me.”

“Listen to m-”

“I won-”

“I can’t pay the rent by myself”, he whispered. A silence fell over the room. “This is the perfect place. It’s old and big. The roof is incredibly high. The walls are the right kind of stone. The windows are big and beautiful.” I nodded. It really was a beautiful place. “But it’s too big to run a one or two man coffee shop.”

I agreed with him. He sounded the way I sounded when I was talking about my little bookstore. His eyes started to sparkle. He was proud of the place. It was his dream he was living, while I couldn’t live mine.

“I’ve got to go.”

“You do?” His voice was calm and unsurprised. He knew that I didn’t have to go. “Will you think about my offer.”

I stood up. “I don’t know yet.”

He grinned at me. When he grinned he got laughing wrinkles on his cheeks and eyes. Freckles disappeared into them. His dark eyes shined. His face was warm in expression and colours.

He knew he had me.

 

 

We were going to use the first room as the coffeeshop and the second room as the bookstore. However, there would be bookshelves with themes or new authors hanging all through the coffeeshop. Some of the secondhand books were put on piles so that people could read them while drinking their coffee. At the bar you could get bookmarkers that were all completely different, so that everyone could know how far in the book they were and which book they were reading this time. The bookmarkers costed little, and you’d get to read for as long as you were at the coffeeshop.

Marco and I had gotten pretty close. The shop brought us together. For days we had talked about how we wanted to rebuild the shop. Even when the shop had been closed for hours we sat there and talked. Marco made sure I was never short of coffee. This alone was a good thing.

A part of the money I had gotten we invested in rebuilding the back of the shop so that it would look like a bookstore. Because a lot of things were right for my taste, this was mainly making sure that there were enough places to read and put the books down.

We chose use bookshelves from rough wood and plants that could hang from the roof.

“Marco there’s paint on your cheek.” We were going to repaint some of the walls, because we had closed to change the shop anyway. “Where?”

“Wait let’s me do that for you.” I took the back of my hand and rubbed it over his face. The paint was easy to get off.

He grinned and thanked me. The wall was almost done. Marco was wearing a blouse that was completely covered in paint. We had put on jazz and it was playing loudly. Marco had an habit of singing with instrumental music. That was fine. I could pretend I was still frowning when I wasn’t.

“Let’s go eat together after we finish painting. We deserve it.”

“Oh. Well, alright.” We hadn’t eaten before. We kept everything shop- and work related. I wondered what it was like to have a conversation with Marco without having the through of working in my mind.

Of course I knew quite some things about Marco. He lived five minutes from the shop. He had the upper floor of an house as his apartment. It was spacey enough, he had said.  Marco told me about his friendship with Armin. He had said that his family lived pretty far away, a few hour drive, because they don’t like the city.

He had told me a lot. But Marco had a habit of keeping it friendly and formal. I wanted to squeeze some emotion and some realness out of him before we started working together.

I didn’t know him.

I wondered if Armin did.

I wondered who watched Marco’s freckled disappear into his cheeks when  he was having a lovely dream. I wondered if Marco was ever grumpy on monday mornings. I wondered if he ever drank his coffee black. I wondered if he had ever gotten his perfect smile broken, together with his heart.

I wondered if not knowing all these things kept me from speaking about myself more. My friends rarely heard me talking about myself, but with Marco I almost felt like telling him about all the shit that was going on in my mind, just so that he would tell me more about him.

“And... it’s done!” I nodded and looked around the room. It looked pretty neat. It was still a little hard to be happy about starting another shop again. When you have had a clear plan that you worked for, it’s hard to accept that another plan that gets offered is good it. It’s great. Better than you could have imagined you’d get. Still you don’t want better than you deserve. You want what you have always dreamed of. “You alright Jean? Do you like it?”

“Yeah I like it. It’s cool.”

“You were frowning.”

I snorted. “That isn’t new.” I cracked my fingers like any asshole with my face would do. “Let’s go eat.”

We didn’t get dressed in anything different. We went to a noodle place in our painting clothes. On the way we had a discussion about whether cilantro tastes like soap or not. I knew that it is used in noodles a lot so I was complaining about it, turned out Marco really likes it. So he started defending cilantro, calling it weird sit like ‘a very  nice spice.’ and stuff.

Once we got into the shop I bought some noodles with beef and without cilantro. He took some vegetarian noodles with cilantro. It was settled; we didn’t both have to like cilantro to eat together. We laughed about it the entire evening.  

We spoke about how the renovation was going for a while. About how good it was going and about how we only needed a few more days to figure everything out. I was going to put my signature on the contract the next day.

We ordered two beer. The lady who helped us was was a slightly coloured asian woman. She seemed to be forty or so. She yelled something in taiwanese to another side of the room. To her husband, I guess.

Marco loosened up a little and let his back slide against the chair. “I’m tired.” he whispered.

“You should get that back of yours massaged.” I guessed someone was willing. It had been ages since I had gotten a massage. The last time someone did that to me was before I realized I am gay. The last person who did that to me had been Sasha, before she became happy.

Marco laughed a little “By who? Massages are expensive as hell.”

“Guessed you had a partner.”

“One I had never talked about before?”

Shit. “Yeah, I guess.”

Marco laughed wholeheartedly. He laughed at my stupid way of thinking. “Jean, you might not guess it when you see me, but I am the kind of person who won’t shut up about the one I like. It’s a terrible personality trait because I’d tell everyone about a crush that is supposed to be a secret.”

“You sound like you have experience.”  Marco laughed. His teeth were white and straight. His lips were fuller than mine. Just a little bit, but fuller. “Tell me.”

“No, it’s nothing.”

“Why?”

He smiled shyly and scratched his neck. “Don’t want to make you awkward.”

“I’m not someone who gets awkward easily.” a lie.

“I think that’s a lie.”

“Only by stuff I do myself, not by something someone else did.” That was the truth, for once.

The waitress came back with our noodles. She smiled kindly and Marco thanked her wholeheartedly. He said that the food looked and smelled amazing. He was that kind of guy. The kind of guy who compliments at every opportunity given. That was dangerous for me, because I took all compliments to the heart while pretending I didn’t give a shit.

He moaned when he took the first bite. Shut his eyes tightly, smiled and moved his head from left to right.

He swallowed.

“It was around the time Armin and Eren went on their first dates. A little before than, actually. I had known Armin for years. We were friends from our first years of college and he helped me a lot when I was going to set up the coffee shop.” I nodded. “I had fallen in love with him. Not long before he started dating Eren. I fell in love with him falling in love with someone else.”

I swallowed. I felt guilty for bringing Eren and Armin together. I felt guilty for making Marco tell me this. I felt guilty that Marco still felt the need to smile while telling me this.  “Did Armin know?”

“I never told him, but I doubt he’s stupid enough to not realize that I once loved him.”  

I hummed to agree. A silence fell. We started eating our noodles while thinking by ourselves, for ourselves. I started thinking about how Marco and Armin would look together. They would be the neatest and most charming couple ever. They would be so kind that it would almost get disgusting. It would be like me dating Eren; the most rude and grumpy ugly couple ever.

“So, you like kind hearted and soft guys?”

He grinned again. It made my heart a little lighter. “Actually, I really don’t. Armin was the exception. I have never fallen for soft hearted kind guys. I have an asshole problem, to be honest.”

I pointed at myself and grinned cockily “So that’s why you want to start a shop with me. Asshole number one at the olympic asshole plays.”

Marco shook his head. “Of course. That is, obviously, the reason.”

“Knew it.”

“Sarcastic i-”

“Asshole?”

“Was going to say idiot.”

“I prefer asshole.”

“Why?”

“Well that means I can stop whenever I want to. Assholes are free, idiots aren’t.”

Marco laughed. When Marco laughed, really laughed, he laughed wholeheartedly, and he laughed lovely. Marco was beautiful when he laughed like that. His face became slightly pink.

 

¨Are you nervous?”

“Maybe.”

Marco stood in front of the door with the ‘open/closed’ board in his hard. He had just unlocked the door, so people could walk in anyway. He turned the board so that it said ‘closed’ at our side. He sighed loudly and let his body fall a little.

“Nothing happened.” I told him.

He laughed “Shut up.”

Marco stood turned to stand behind the bar again. He started rearranging the way all the cups were standing and told me to check if all the plants had water. He was nervous. The day before we had made sure that every book, every cup, every coffeebean, everything, had been in place. I did as he told me though. I was getting a habit of doing what Marco told me.

Marco walked up to me and handed me a warm cup of coffee. He smiled kindly. He knew that way underneath that daily frown, I was excited as hell too. He had gotten to know me.

“They’ll love it.”

“I hope I didn’t mess up your lovely shop with my grumpyness.”

“You did not just say that, you asshole.”

“Well I mea-” Marco took my cup of coffee out of my hands and smiled brightly. Carefully and slowly put his arms around my neck. His sweater tickled in my neck. He was very warm and he was a little taller than I was. It made me feel small and cold. “Marco? What the hell.”

“I know you need it.” he said cockily.

“Fuck o-”

He put his arms around me a little tighter. “It will be alright today.”

“Yeah..” I breath in. “Of course.”

The bell of the shop rang. Marco let go of me as quickly as he could and I stumbled backwards a little bit. “Excuse me!” the customer yelled.

“Good morning!” Marco cheered, I mumbled something that sounded nothing like a goodmorning.

“I’d like to have a small breakfast. Is that possible?”

Marco started chatting with the customer. The person had noticed that Marco’s shop had been closed and had read on the site that there would be coming a bookstore inside of the shop. He told Marco that the shop turned out well and that he couldn’t check out the entire shop because he had to go to work after the breakfast. Marco laughed. Marco had a kind conversation and then fixed coffee and a croissant.

The day was like that. People came in for coffee and searched through the bookstore. Marco made me meet the regulars and had me show them around the bookstore, from time to time. But Marco was the one talking to people. Marco was the one greeting people. Marco was the one telling people who I was. These people were Marco’s customers, not mine. I wondered if they would ever be.

I hadn’t noticed how uncharming I was until I started hanging around Marco.  
I don’t know if I was happy that I got to meet someone as beautiful as Marco, or if I was sad because I was just me.

“Marco! Jean! How is the first day?” Armin walked in. It was the first day that I had seen Armin and Eren in quite a while.

“Armin!” Marco yelled Armin’s name breathlessly.

My stomach dropped.

Armin smiled his kind smile. His eyes light and his cheeks red from the cold air outside. He was wearing his neat jacket and the upper side of his hair was tied up in a ponytail. He looked so good.

I had forgotten that there were people who were as good as Marco. Someone who Marco had once adored with his life. People who were not constantly anxious, broke, angry or anything inbetween those things.

“Jean you okay back there?”

I quickly picked up a big pile of books. “Yeah! Sorry, I’m kind of busy.” I was not.

“Alright, come here when you finish that.”

I watched Armin sit down at the bar with a cup of fresh ginger tea. He took one of the classic books from one of the bookshelves and Marco explained the system I had made up. I pretended to be busy.

I was jealous.

It hit me hard because I had not been jealous like this before. Of course, I had been jealous of the good relationship Armin and Eren had. I wanted someone charming to endlessly love me like Armin loved Eren. I am even as grumpy as Eren is. It was just never meant for me, I realised, and being jealous of someone elses relationship is never bad, because you do not dream to break it. You just dream to have something alike. Or something just as good.

But now. Now I wanted to be a better person. I wanted to get rid of my insecurities and the habit of locking myself up with books. I wished that Marco could grin at me like that. I wished that I wasn’t just Marco’s colleague, because my becoming his colleague, I had already stopped myself from being any more than that.

“Excuse me? Can you tell me something about this author? You seem to have a lot of books from him.”

I smiled. A customer for me. Just me. “Of course! He’s an amazing one, you see-”

 

 

“Jean, Armin said that you have been ignoring his phone calls.”  Marco locked the door. We were closed for the day. It had been a long day. With every day more people were coming in and we had been working for a few weeks. We were thankful. We really were.

Keeping my smiled and hands to myself was becoming harder. I wanted to hold Marco, who had always started up the shop once I came in. Who brought me a warm cup of black coffee when he saw that I was tired. I wanted to kiss Marco when he smiled brightly at every goddamn customer. I wanted to punch Marco, for using that same damn smile on me. Or punch myself, for not seeing the differences between his smiles.

Maybe everything made him happy and I just didn’t deserve him.

“Yeah, I’ve been busy.”

“Jean that’s a lie.”

I walked to the back of the shop to go clean up. “Jean please go sit down with me.”

“No sorry.”

“Stop cleaning please.”

“I’m not done.”

“Just stop!” I dropped my stuff from shock. Marco had never raised his voice at me. “Come drink with me?”

I swallowed. “Yeah sure, just let me clean this up.”

Marco took my jacket and walked up to me. He handed me my jacket and put my scarf around my neck he was close and carefully made sure my neck would be warm. My scarf was never really warm. I was warm because of how I could feel his breath. “Don’t clean. Please just come with me.”  I nodded. “I’m sorry, I’m very tired.”

Marco put his arm around my arm when we were walking, because he’s that kind of person. We walked in complete silence. When when rain drops started falling from the sky to his our heads, we did not speak up. We let the raindrops fall onto our heads. It was already dark out. We had worked till too late again. We were making a habit out of that.

“This is my house”

To come to Marco’s apartment you had to walk up one stair. The stairway was covered in red carpet. On the wall from the door to his front door there were all kinds of picture frames with very old pictures. These were his grandparents and parents,  I guessed. Most of them were marriage photos and some were photos of little kids. I wondered if one of the photos was him.

The door was from light wood. Once you opened it you came into the living room. The living room was big and open. He had a brown knitted carpet on the floor and an wooden table standing on top of it.

He had flowers. I wondered who bought them for him.

Marco walked on into the house and came back with a towel and some warm trousers. I dried myself. It wasn’t really cold for the time of the year. It just rained a lot.

“Beer?”  I took the beer that Marco was holding out to me. He bought fancy beer. That was so much like him that it made me smile a little.

“Yeah, that’s cool man.”

He sat down next to me and blew his hands warm. His hands were strong and big. There were freckles draped all over them. His hands were pretty dark. “What’s up?”

“You have quite big hands, right?”

“They’re normal, I guess” He put up his hand and pointed it to me. “Is it big?”

“I don’t know. I guess it is.”

He laughed “Put your hand against it then.”

I did as he told me. My hand was light and thin. I had thin scars running from my nail. My pinky was slanted because I once broke it while fighting with a kid in elementary school. Before I got into books I fought quite a lot. I now wondered why I had done it, now that my hands felt so weak and small against Marco’s big and warm hand.

“You’re hand is cold.” he told me.

“And small.” I followed.

He smiled while looking strictly at our hands “No. No, I guess my hand really is big.” For a while we kept on staring at those hands, but then, when I wanted to pull my hand back, he took it in his hand and held it tightly. “What has been wrong with you?”

“It’s nothing”

He squeezed my hand even tighter. “Jean, starting a shop with you has been lovely. Seeing how your frown disappears when you can tell people about new struggling authors is something I never want to lose. I’m so glad that I chose to mix our shops.”

“It wasn’t like we had a choice.” I whispered.

Marco’s eyes widened. “Do you regret it?”  He let go of my hand.

“No I don’t regret it. I wouldn’t have anything if it wasn’t for this.”

“But you would have rather had your own shop.”

“That fucking shop was my dream.”

Marco looked down in silence. “But do you like working now?”

“I do.”

“Then why-? You not liking the shop would be the only explanation for that sad look you have sometimes. I would understand if that sad look was something you’d have because of losing your shop but you didn’t have it until recently. I’m just worried. You even shut Armin and Eren out. I don’t understand.”

I sipped my beer with a frown on my face. “There’s nothing to understand, really.”

“That’s not true.”

“It i-” Marco took my  face in his hand. Pulled my face so that I would look at him. He stared right through my soul, his face close to mine. He was worried about me. He was frowning with sadness. Disappointment maybe. Still my heart was jumping through every part of my body because it was him who was holding me. It was his touch. Because I had it bad as fuck. “Do you really want to know? I’ll fucking tell you.”

He didn’t let go of my face, but his hand loosened up.  “Jean..”

“I can’t fucking stand the way you look at Armin, that’s why I won’t talk to him.” Wrong way to start. “The last time I have been held was by a woman. A woman who loved me and a woman whose heart I broke. She didn’t reserve to not be loved. But I realized, way too late, that I was gay and that I could never date a woman.”  Marco nodded. “I thought it would be easier, because men don’t give a fuck about an asshole attitude. About someone who locks himself up just to read books. Because men care less if you kick them out of the house after the goddamn sex.” I snorted. “And that’s what I did. That’s how I ended up without anyone who can put up with my asshole attitude. That’s how I always end up being alone in the evening while I wanted to be held and that’s why I always wanted to be around someone kind, happy, enduring and strong.”

“Yeah, I can understand that.”

“I’m talking about you, though. You are those things. You are what I need to balance me out.”

Marco leaned down and let his hand slide through his hair. “But that’s perfect. Why are you angry at me then?”

“I’m not fucking angry at you!” He backed away a little. I wasn’t doing a very good job proving my words. “I just think that if I had met you somewhere else that it would have been better.”

“So you do mind running the shop together?”

“No! Marco, please stay with me.” Marco nodded. “I fucking- I fucking wanted to meet you somewhere else because I want to hold you. I want you to be the person I don’t kick out after the sex. I want you to be that person who watches me read. I fucking-” fell into silence. My head was slowly catching up with my words. Marco was slowly catching up with my words. There was a worried frown on his face and his breath was slow but heavy. He was thinking about an answer.

“Jean I-”

“Please don’t answer me. I really don’t want you to give in because it would ruin everything we have built together in the shop. I don’t want you to make me feel bad either, because that would make me miserable. So please, I understand that everything I want is impossible while running a shop together.”

“Jean..” He let his hand fall onto my leg and squeezed it softly.

“I’ll get over it as soon a possible. Won’t be that hard. This feeling has only been here for a while.”

And he agreed. He agreed with me with his head held low and a forced, fake smile on his face. I finished my beer, thanked him for the hospitality and then walked to the nearest bus station. I was still wearing his trousers.

 

I went home and I cried. I hadn’t cried in a long time. It was a disgusting cry, like the cry I had cried when Sasha realised I was gay. It was a cry in which I bit my sheets and wanted to pull my hair. A frustrating cry. I promised myself that if I’d cry enough, I’d cry all of the love for Marco out of me. So while crying I thought of the way his freckles disappeared into his laughing rimpels, about the way his hair felt so neat and about the way he would warm me with words, with coffee and with that one hug I couldn’t fucking forget about.

 

The next day it seemed as if nothing had happened. For once I had kept my word. I had managed to straighten up. I walked into the shop, half an hour late, and Marco greeted me with small smile. He looked a little bit nervous, but not enough to make it awkward. It made my heart itch, but I could ignore it.  “Coffee?”

“Yes please.”

“I- I had already made you one cup of coffee but it turned cold.”

“Yeah, sorry for being late.”

“That’s no problem, Jean.”

I took the coffee out of his hands. He put a croissant with it and mumbled something about how I looked like I hadn’t had breakfast yet. That was true. I couldn’t get a damn thing through my mouth. I just hoped he couldn’t see it, because if he could even see that, it must have been obvious that I had been crying.  “Thanks”

I quickly walked to the back of the shop to check if no one had moved books into weird places. “A new delivery came.” Marco said. He got behind the counter and carried a big box of books my way. “There are two more.”

Marco was strong. He told me to organize while he brought me the boxes. He asked how many of them could stay in the backroom. Marco had become even more caring.

If anything, the whole situation made things better. A group of customers walked in and Marco and I stood beside each other. I gathered all the snacks and cakes, Marco made all the drinks. We were working as a team.

When no one was walking in for books, Marco taught me how to make all the coffee’s. He stood next to me and showed me exactly how much milk to use and how to brew perfectly. He tried to teach me to make drawings in the cappuccino but I kept fucking that one up. He laughed at me. It made my stomach turn that I, an incredible fuck up, could make a man like him laugh that much by making coffee. “You’ll get it!”

“This doesn’t even look like a leaf.”

Marco giggled “It’s artistic.”

I punched him in the shoulder softly “Shut up.”

“I’m going to drink it. I bet it’s the best coffee ever.” Marco put the cup to his lips, drank a little bit, and moaned the most idiotic moan I had ever heard. “Amazing! You must be a coffee God”

When customers for the bookshop came in we parted. I realised, while helping customers finding their books, that Marco knew very little about the books I sold. Except from the fact that I was pretty aggressive when it came to people trashing my books.

After I had a customer leaving with three books and a smile, I called Marco to come to the back of the shop. “Hey what’s up.”

“You taught me how to make coffee right?” He nodded. “I’ll teach you about the books. About the different authors and what they write. I’ll teach you how to handle my customers too.”

Marco smiled brightly “Sure!”

I started telling him about all kinds of different authors and about different styles of books. He knew the majority of styles, but he had trouble remembering all the authors. There were also, still, some styles he had no idea existed.

“Why don’t you give me recommendations? I could read some books. I have time for that.” And that’s how I ended up giving Marco a book. We agreed that he could take a new book whenever he had finished one. Every other week or month. Whenever he wanted one.

After we ended the shop ended Marco made some tea for the both of us. I was tired as hell but I felt like being alone, or being with somebody else wouldn’t feel as good as just sitting here, drinking some tea with Marco. We put on some loud lofi jazz and I talked about the book I had given Marco while trying not to spoil anything. We ordered some pizza and ate together in the shop. We laughed a lot. Some of the awkwardness had fallen away. But when he smiled a certain way, or when he said certain things, or when he looked with that indescribable spark in his eyes, my heart fell into my belly. I could pretend that Marco wasn’t what I wanted for as much as I wanted, but I would never fully believe it; Marco would remind me every damn day how amazing he was. I couldn’t just avoid Marco until it was gone.

 

Eating together became a habit. Sometimes we ate out. Most of the time we went to the noodle place we went the first day, because truly, it had magnificent noodles and the best noodles. From time to time we walked through the city until he had found a good place to eat. I would always complain about how all the food was too expensive and Marco would always point out that we had exactly as much money. That wasn’t true, I still had savings from selling my shop. I was planing to move to a better apartment.

In the morning I would have breakfast near the bar, because people would come in for breakfast and Marco was sure he could handle all of it by himself. Two times a week I would walk around the shop to water all the plants Marco put in the shop. I really liked plants but I always let them die. Marco was, to no one's surprise, amazing with them.

Before I knew it Marco and I were basically together all day. It was always around eight or nine when we parted to go to our own house. I would read until midnight and he would open the shop at nine o’clock in the morning again. I would be there a few minutes later.

 

 

One time I had hear Marco on the phone with one of his friends. “Sorry, I can’t come.” he had said. “I’m going to eat with Jean today.”  He looked upset. “No. Yes I see him every day. No I know but it’s a deal.” I pretended not to hear him while cleaning all the tables until they were dust free. My heart was beating in my throat “I know that I don’t see you guys a lot.-”

I stopped listening. When Marco was finished calling I walked up to him and told him that I was feeling sick and that he’d have to close up by himself. He wanted to know what kind of pain I had. I told him that queasy and that my head was killing me. He nodded and told me what I could eat if I wanted to get better. He was of course the kind of guy who would take care of himself when he was ill.

I walked home with a numb head. I hoped Marco would just go to eat with his friends. I had forgotten that Marco was a goddamn nice person and that everyone loved him. I was spending all my time with him, because I just had Armin and Eren as my friends, no one more than that. Marco had so many people who loved him. He had to have them.  
I was being stupid for thinking I was so goddamn special.

The door of my studio cracked. The place was dark. I was starting to hate going back home. I had to move to a place with the same peace as our shop.  Maybe I needed to get a cat to give me love or something like that.

I laid down on the couch and opened the William burroughs I was reading. Junky. I put on some lofi loudly. The melodies galmed as if they were deformed. I was tired. I wanted to be emotionless.

A loud knock on my door shook me awake. I didn’t open right away. If it was the mailman he could put the package in front of the goddamn door. I waited. “Jean?”  Marco’s voice galmed through the hallway of the building.

I came to my feet so quickly that I scared myself. I didn’t dare to open the door because I knew damn well that I had lied because of myself, but I couldn’t leave Marco standing alone.  “Hey” the door creaked so loudly that I could doubt Marco even heard me.

Marco held out a paper bag that smelled good.  “I got you some chicken soup and vegetable soup.”

I sighed “You shouldn’t have.”

“As if you were going to cook for yourself.”

I realised how bad I was at taking care of myself that second. I had been taking care of myself since Marco came into my life. I slept more, I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner. That used to be such an unusual thing for me. I never ate three times a day.  

My room was still a dark goddamn mess. The kitchen looked awful, I doubted that I could still cook in that kitchen. If Marco and I chose to eat home cooked food together, it was always at Marco’s place. Marco had never been to my place.

I could see that he was looking through my room. He noticed how I had no bookshelves and how I just made piled of books around my bed. He probably noticed how a part of my blanket was hanging out of the cover and how all my pillows were pushed into one place of my bed. Maybe he was surprised that my room was so small. Or that I had no table to sit to eat my dinner. I just had one couch and a coffee table.

“Thanks.”

“I brought some for myself too, but if you feel too ill I could just go home” Marco smiled kindly.

“No, no come in.” Marco walked in and looked through my room again. “We could sit on pillows on the ground to eat.”

“No you’re ill, please just go sit on the couch under a blanket. I’ll hand you your soup.”  And he did. I sat down and put a blanket around me while he got all the soup out of the bag. It smelled great. He had some plastic spoons and didn’t bother to ask me for proper spoons. He handed me the warm chicken soup. It felt amazingly warm on my hands. “I want to take care of you.” He whispered.

“Thank you.” And I meant it.

Marco sat on the couch awkwardly. His soup looked like spicey pumpkin soup. “Can I- Do you mind if I sit against you?”

I looked up, straight into his eyes (a stupid fucking thing to do), and took way too long to answer. “Yeah sure. Go ahead.”

“Sure?”

“Of course.” He shifted so that he was sitting against me. He pushed out his shoes off and put his feet on the couch, under my blanket. Is was cold. “Shitt that’s cold.”

Marco pulled back his feet, “sorry.”

“No, put them against my legs. I’m warm.”

Marco carefully put his feet against my legs and his shoulder against mine. We ate in silence. Marco’s breath was heavy and slow. It was a calming breath. His shoulders were hanging low and relaxed. When he took a bite of his soup he closed his eyes. I watched him shamefully, and I think that he noticed. Having him so close to me made me feel like a little kid. It made me think of how my mother used to make me warm soup if I was really ill. It reminded me of falling asleep in the car and being carried out because you pretended you were still asleep. Marco was a warm man.

“Feeling better?”

I snuggled my face into his shoulder, which surprised him, and whined softly. “You should have gone out to eat with your friends.”

Marco tensed up. “Why?”

“They called you. I heard.”

“I’ll hang out with whoever I feel like being with.” He pulled back a little so that he could look me into the eye. “Jean, you, out of everybody, must know how tired people can make you. Even the nicest people can tire you insanely.”

“Yeah of course.”

“But some people, they give you all the energy in the world. So when you’re tired, because of, I don’t know, working from nine to seven,  you must hang out with people who give you enough energy to stand another day.”

I knew what he was talking about. He was explaining exactly how I was feeling about him. He was radiating that energy through me right now. Even his ice cold feet could give me all the warmth in the world. “I have that too.”

“Really? With wh-”

“I guess I should call you battery from now. That’s a fitting nickname. Mc Battery”

Marco grinned brightly. “Alright.”

“Now you ruined the fun. You shouldn’t agree with nicknames.”

He laughed loudly, “Oh!” He pretended to frown but couldn’t really keep the frown on his face. “Please don’t call me that.” I pushed him and he laughed even brighter. I loved him. I loved that laugh. I was miserable and I was happy at the same time. Don’t understand me? Join the club. “Jean, can I sit under the blanket with you?”

“Yeah sure.”

He let his hand caress mine. His head fell on my shoulder. He breath slowly and carefully, as if he actually wanted to calm me with his breath. I started playing with the hand that was caressing mine. My hand slid over his and my fingers playfully slid through his. It was as if everything that happened underneath the blanket was happening in another world. Our faces were neutral. His eyes were closed and I was staring at him or at a spot in my room. But our hands made love in that second.

This was Marco giving in. This was Marco giving in a little bit. But when he fell asleep on my shoulder I knew he was slowly forgetting it.

 

When I woke up I was scared as hell. I sat up straight at once. My hands flew to my phone as quick as they could. “Fuck” it was already ten o'clock. I searched for Marco’s name in my phone and started typing a message to say that I was late.

“Jean?”  

I looked up. Marco was smiling down at me. I was laying on the couch, I noticed now. Memories were slowly getting back. “Marco it’s already fucking ten o’clock we’ve got to go”

“Jean, it’s sunday.”

I let it sink in. My back his the couch again. “Oh.. really.. Alright.”

Marco laughed a little and turned back to my kitchen. I could see him cooking from the couch. That’s how small my studio was. He seemed to be making something with egg. Maybe pancakes, maybe an omelette. Probably an omelette though, because I never had any milk or flour.

Watching Marco cook was one of the relaxing things I had ever done. He softly sang some jazz classics while cooking. He did a piece of _fly me to the moon, misty, tenderly, I got a woman,_ and much more. It was amazing to see him like that. He didn’t feel the need to talk to me, or to amuse me. That was even more comfortable. He felt at home in the dump I called home.

I started reading my book until Marco handed me some breakfast and some coffee. “What time do you want me gone?” he asked casually, with a smile on his face.

“I’d never want you gone.” I replied, with a voice as if I was joking.

Marco laughed softly. “Then I’ll stay for a bit.”

We chatted a bit while eating and when we were done Marco took out the book I had given him and we started reading. For hours we read. He was sitting on one side of the couch, I was sitting on the other, and our legs softly touched the others. Everything was fine right there and then. Every time something confusing or special happened in the book Marco would tell me about it with a great smile. And when I told him about the books, he would look at me like I was amazing.

 

 

Marco had started calling  me dumb shit like ‘his best friend’. I knew that that was exactly what I was and I knew that he was that to me too.

We opened the shop exactly one month ago. Which meant that we had known each other for quite a while and that we would go drinking together. Marco was wearing beautiful clothes. Brown patterned blouse in a shade that was way darker than his skin. Not yet black. He looked amazing. His freckles stood out in the crowd.

I wanted to be proud that I was walking beside Marco. I wanted to glare at every man who dared to look at Marco as if he was mine. The thing was; I wasn’t. So when someone asked up if we were ‘you know’ we told them that we had a shop together and that they should totally come check it out. We told them that books and coffee is a great combination. We told them, without really saying it, that no, we were not ‘you know’ because we were colleagues.

We went to a bar called paradox. They played jazz music and had the good kind of customers. Open Minded people. Anger headed hipsters. People with bigger afros that you can imagine. A great place.  

Marco and I ordered two red wines. Marco paid for me. We pushed our glasses together and laughed when congratulating each other on working together. I had a hard time smiling.

Marco somewhere got talking to a lady who was standing at the bar. She had bright red hair and a short pony. She was small, curvy and had a sassy voice.

I walked through the bar for a bit. There was a band playing. It was a black jazz band. One with a heavy bass and low voices. The guy behind the bass had an afro and tight cheekbones. His lips were thick. He was wearing a suitpants with a white blouse that was slightly open. Underneath he was wearing sneakers. He moved his head to the music in a feminine way, despite of his manly face.

When they were done playing and another band started playing he came down from the stage and smiled at me. When I smiled back he came up to me. “Cought ya’ staring.” He said, it sounded quite kind still.

“Yeah.”

He moved closer and grinned. “You liked it?”  

I let my hand go through my hair. “Yeah sure.”

“Can I buy you something?”

“No, I’m good.”

He smirked and put his hand on my shoulder. He was a little too close for my liking. Then again, why was I, a homosexual horny asshole, complaining about a little bit of attention. I wouldn’t get the attention from the man I was in love with. I wouldn’t get anywhere hanging on to the love I had. If I wanted to become happy, or maybe just less frustrated, I should have given in a little.    “You seem like you deserve it?”

I smirked and raised my eyebrows. “How’s that?”

“You seem frustrated.”

“You’re good at guessing.”

He smiled gleefully, took my hand and dragged me to the bar. “Two whisky.” he called out to the lady behind the bar. “Do you like whisky?”

“It’s alright.”

And so his hand was replaced by a glass of whisky. He stood beside me proudly. “Can I ask you something you might find rude?”

“Your risk.”

He chuckled. “Are you into men?”

“That’s not rude.” I sipped my whisky. “It’s straight to the point.” he laughed. “I am.”

“Good.” He threw his whisky down his throat and took mine out of my hand. Then he put both arms around me and started dancing against me, waiting for me to go with him. “Do you mind?”

“Not really.”

He came a little closer and put his head into my neck. “You here with someone?”

“Yeah..”

“Who?”

“A colleague” He chuckled. Knowing that this was probably slight bullshit.  “The one with the freckles over by the bar.”

“He’s handsome.”  He moved so that his crotch was softly against mine. He took my hip in his hand. I felt thin next to him. It was as if he was just holding my bone.

I wanted Marco to dance with me like this.  
I was desperate though. I hadn’t felt wanted in a long time. The words I had said about wanting to wake up next to someone were gone. I wouldn’t wake up next to this man. The only man I would wake up next to was a man I loved. A man who did not love me.  

“Yeah, he is.”

He softly slid his nose and lips against my ear. I shivered. I was doubting if I could do it, I was doubting if I could still have one night stands now that I was in love with someone. Now that I had experiences how amazing it could be to just hang around with someone all day. To have a battery.  “You like him?΅

“Yeah.”

He brought his hand up to my hand and pulled my hair softly but sensually. I wanted to cry because he had asked me about Marco. He had rubbed the fact that Marco didn’t want me in, knowing that he could soothe the burn.  “You want to get out of here?”

I nodded softly and walked up to Marco to tell him goodbye. The guy followed behind me. Marco had a hard time smiling. Maybe he wasn’t having a good time. Maybe the girl with the red hair was a bitch. “Marco, I’m leaving first.” I mumbled.

“With him?”  He looked at the guy I was with.

“Yeah.” The guy put a hand on my hip. It was time for me to leave. Talking to Marco would make leaving impossible. I turned around and walked to the exit.

When we were outside Marco walked up to us again. “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“Didn’t want to make a scene inside.”

I let my hand go through my hair. “Marco-”

“No. Don’t you dare to ‘Marco’ me. You tell me you want someone to spend your goddamn life with, to wake up next to, but you don’t even listen to yourself.” Marco had not put on his jacket even though it was very cold. His face stood tight and angry.

The guy took a little bit of distance and lit a cigarette. His whole body language saying that he didn’t really care either way. He was giving me some time.

“Marco this is really none of your business.”

“What?” He stormed up to me. I was scared and excited at the same time. I had never seen Marco angry.  He took my chin into his hand and made me look at him. “I’m taking you home, Jean”

“To fucking do what?! To bring me fucking coffee in the morning and talk about books like two best friends?”

“Goddamn right. I’m going to make you coffee and I’m going to let you talk about books for hours.”  

I didn’t know what to answer. That was what I wanted, wasn’t it? “Marco, you can’t do this to me.” I whispered.

“Let me take you home.” He stroked my face. His eyes stood desperate. “Don’t go home with someone else-”

“Excuse me?” The handsome black guy spoke up. Finally. His body language stood calm. “I’m going inside. Jean, I was going for a good time but there ain’t no way I’m going to mess some love up, man.”

And like that he left.

Like that Marco and I fell into silence.

Marco’s hand was still on my face.

“I’m taking you home.” Marco whispered after a while. He put his arm around my shoulder and stopped a taxi. The ride home was silent. Marco paid for the taxi when we got to my house and when we got out he put his hand on my waist. His body languages told me all I wanted to hear after him getting so jealous. That was dangerous. Those were not thoughts I was supposed to have.

But once he got inside he pushed my against the door and put his face against my neck. “I’m upset, Jean.”

“I- fucking-”

“I got jealous. It’s not your fault.” Marco softly kissed my neck. He went from my neck to my ear. He licked my earlobe and sucked it softly. His right hand was lying on my hip and his left hand was pulling my hair softly. “I thought I found someone who only wanted me.”

“What? I do-” He pushed his lips on mine. It was not a soft kiss. It was not fit as a first kiss. But it was an amazing kiss. He roughly pushed my lips open and licked against my mouth. He pulled me closed and closer by the neck, until it was impossible to get even closer.

When he pulled back I wanted to cry. When he got to his knees I actually let out a soft cry. His mouth covered my crotch with my pants still on. He roughly kissed it. Then he carefully and slowly unbuttoned my jeans, making me want to curse. Took out my cock and gave it one very teasing lick. Then he looked up, with my hard on in his face, and said “Don’t ever let another man take you.”

My insides turned upside down. My penis arched. I moaned painful moans. It felt a little like I would wake up from a dream any minute. Maybe that was because it was late at night, or the soft jazz that was still playing in my mind, but everything was truly unrealistic.

Marco put me into his mouth. He closed his eyes gently. I looked down so I could study his face with me in his mouth. It was a sight I would forever see in my dreams.

“Fuck..” Marco backed off for a second, then he licked my tight and balls, before taking me into his mouth again. He was carefully playing my tip with his tongue while I was fully inside of him. He could easily take my entire cock into his mouth.  “Marco.” It felt good to say his name out loud while feeling like this.

Marco gave one hard suck on my cock and then let go of it with a few last licks. “Come to bed with me.” I whimpered. Marco was demanding. His everlasting grin and smile was gone, but the sparkle in his eye was still there. It was different, but it was even more amazing.  
This was it. This was a look I had never seen on Marco before, and I doubted that anyone had seen it on Marco before.

I pushed my jeans down, pulled out my shirt, but kept my socks on. I pointed him to where the lube was in a painfully tight voice.  
With an amazing tingle in my stomach I got down on my knees and hands. I pushed my ass up, hoping it would be a good sight for Marco. Hoping he was lustful. Hoping I was beautiful enough for him to want to have sex with me. Not only now, but every day. Every morning and every evening. I hoped I was worth that, when I looked like this.

Marco moaned behind me softly. He let his hands slide over my ass. His fingers softly and teasingly caressed in between. He kissed my back. My penis arched.  He let the lube fall on my ass and whipped it until it was everywhere. He entered my ass with the tip of his finger, then he pushed in another finger and pushed it in and out, from side to side. I moaned loudly. Begging for him to enter me. Marco seemed to have other plans though, and those other plans included not hurting me. So he carefully fingered me, leaving me moaning in lust.

“Alright..” Marco whispered, more to himself than to me. “Jean, please turn around.”

“What?” I was laying with my face into the sheets. Savilla all over it already.

“I want you to see me.”

He helped me turn. Held me carefully. Digged his fingers into my hips when doing so and then. While he was standing above me like that, his penis arching, big and between my legs, he said “You are beautiful.”  
And I wanted to tell him a lot of things. I wanted to tell him to hurry up and fuck me already; I wanted to tell him that I had been in love with him since I first saw how his freckles disappeared into his cheeks;  I wanted to tell him that he was the one who was beautiful, or that he had really fucked up. So instead of doing any of those things, I put my arms in front of my face and pushed my hips against him softly and tenderly.

Marco got the message. He entered me carefully and slowly. I moaned loudly and pushed my arms even closer to my face than they had been before. As soon as Marco had fully entered me he moved softly and carefully. He took my arms and pushed them away from my face, making me look at him. His pupils were big and dark. His face stood lustful. It was as if he was looking right through my soul.

I whimpered.

“Do you love me?” Marco asked softly while moving his hips against my ass. He slowly moved them up and down until all the pain was gone from my moans. Then he started turning. He leaned in so that his body was hanging over mine and started moving roughly against me. In the heat I took his hand to put it on my mouth and started biting the side of his hand. He didn’t seem bothered by this.

Eventually he leaned in even closer. He let his neck fall against my lips and I bit them as soft as I could while moaning in pleasure. He moaned softly and low. His body was warm and sweaty. He gripped my hips tightly, lifted them and pushed them back onto his dick. Marco was big for me. Though I would have never told him that. I screamed out, pulling Marco’s hair roughly. Marco didn’t mind me biting and pulling. It was as if he had become immune to all these things because he was inside of me. I wished he was. I wished that he could forget everything because he was inside of me. I wished he would fall in love with me that second, while he was inside of me.

 

The first thing I thought about when waking up was how I regretted not waking up earlier so I could watch him sleep. He was already sitting straight up with a cup of tea in his hand and a book in the other. Once he noticed that I was awake he laid down his book and put his hand on my face. “Why are you still here? What about the shop?” I softly asked him.  
“I figured that leaving you to wake up alone would be the worst thing I could do.” He was right. I would have been scared to death if I had woken up alone. I would have probably cried all day. “Armin went by to put a message on the door.”

I moaned and pushed my face against the sheets and his hip. I was afraid to talk to him about anything that was not work related. Marco apparently did not feel the same.

“That guy from yesterday was actually a pretty nice guy. I was extremely jealous, but I felt kinda bad too.”  I hummed something to agree. “I’m glad you’re lying here with me.”

“You turned me down.” I pointed out with my face still covered by the sheets.

Marco took my face and pushed it up. “Jean.” I stared at him. His eyes stood stern and lovingly. His hand was warm. “I’m sorry. Please don’t tell me it’s impossible because of the shop or whatever you are planning to say.”

“It’s a bad idea.”

“I don’t care.”

I closed my eyes, breath in deeply, and then looked him into his eyes as deep as I could. “Good, because I was starting to notice that getting over you is impossible. It has got to be you.”

Marco awkwardly bend down to kiss me on the lips softly. “Good.”

Then he stood up. Put on some coffee and took the biggest mug he could find. He was softly humming a song while pouring the coffee. The sunlight was shining through my curtains on pieces of my kitchen and he walked through the beautiful light as if it was a dream. I knew it wasn’t though. I had finally woken up and I realised none of it had been a dream. It had all been Marco.  It had been my first time actually falling in love. And that was crazy for someone as old as I was, but it was true, and I had gone through hell to get there.

“You are the first man who stayed to make me coffee.”

“I’ll make you coffee every day.” Marco sat down and handed me my mug. He was smiling sweetly. His freckles disappeared into his laughing rimpels and his eyes sparkled.

I took the coffee. “You have been making me for a month.”

“I make everyone that coffee, Jean, I want to make you coffee before I have seen anyone, early in the morning, or late at night. I want your coffee to become cold because you’re too busy making love to me.”

I laughed. “That sounds like a plan.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and leave kudos so I know what you think!  
> Thank you very much for reading! (:


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